Behavioral Support Plans In Earlychildh

Behavioral Support Plans in Earlychildhood
Behavioral Support Plans
Behavior management is essential in early childhood settings. It is part of avoiding problems that some children may bring to the classroom. Examples of behaviors consist of hitting, biting, kicking, or throwing things. Behaviors such as these can also be called challenging behaviors. This type of behavior can happen for numerous reasons, which is why teachers need to make a plan to help control or even stop these types of behaviors. Having behavior management skills that are useful are used in classrooms will reduce any disruptions and help all of the children learn.
Being a proactive thinker lets you think your own way. It is not allowing others to tell you what to do or how to think. As difficult as it may be to be a proactive thinker, especially while working with children, it is still very important. You may need to try different strategies before you find the one that works. Not everything will be fixed right away. Strategies that may help teachers determine while children are displaying challenging behaviors include: predictability and scheduling, add more choices, and make adjustments to the curriculum.
Not knowing what is going to happen can cause someone to become challenging. For example, Ana is a child at a center. She goes five days a week however; every time she is dropped off she has to go to a different room rather than her normal room. This causes Ana to start throwing tantrums whenever she is dropped off. Being able to predict or in Ana’s case know where she is going can be considered their security blanket. “A classroom that is well-designed and is implemented consistently may be the single most important factor in preventing challenging behavior.” (Strain, Hemmeter, 1997). When teachers develop routines to increase predictability it will help reduce challenging behaviors in students. Two ways that you can do that are to have a schedule along with transitions.
Creating a daily routine that the children know and are aware of will help them to know what is happening and what is going to come next. This will help increase appropriate behavior. Having children refer back to the schedule and review what is going to happen next several times a day is important as well. Teachers are able to use this step to help clarify any questions along with what is expected of them. When children know what it is the teacher wants from them and what they need to do will reduce challenging behaviors.
Transitions are very important to students. Alerting the children before a transition is going to be made can help with the children’s appropriate behavior. These signals will let the children know that it is time to finish up with what they are working on before moving on to the next activity. There are many different signals a teacher may use. Different signals such as visual, auditory, or tactile may vary depending on the child. For example, Tyler is playing with blocks and the teacher announces that cleanup will begin in five minutes. After five minutes the teacher flicks the lights three times to let the students know it is time to clean up. The students know that the lights flicking three times it is time to clean up. This will minimalize waiting periods or giving something for others to do as they finish early, which helps promote appropriate behavior. When children are engaged in an activity they will be less likely to show challenging behavior.
Having children make their own choices on some daily activities will also help reduce challenging behavior. Children are often times told what to do and how to do it. This does not allow the children to express themselves. Giving students with challenging behaviors the opportunity to make choices is a way to teach them how to help others without displaying challenging behavior. This is not giving them control and allowing them to do whatever they want. It does mean that you are letting them express themselves and giving them some independence. Children will also feel as if their feelings are being heard and that they are not powerless. A list of choices can be made by the student, teacher, and parents but the child gets the final decision.
Making changes to the curriculum is another strategy to use. Using curriculum adaptions can be made to enhance a child’s performance in completing an activity and to stop challenging behavior. Activities that children will use catch the child’s interest, and are age appropriate have been shown to increase positive behavior unlike activities that do not display these characteristics change in difficulty, length, and pace of activity can reduce their interest which can trigger challenging behavior.
Teachers can take some steps to help promote challenging behavior. Some steps they can take are: identifying the purpose of challenging behavior, teaching appropriate alternative responses that serve the same purpose as the challenging behavior, consistently rewarding positive behaviors and minimizing the rewards for challenging behavior, minimizing the physiological, environmental, and curricular factors that trigger challenging behavior.
Reference
Horner, R. H., & Diemer, S. M. (1992). Educational support for students with severe problem behaviors in Oregon: A descriptive analysis from the 1987-1988 school year. Journal of the Association for Persons with Severe Handicaps, 17, 154-169
Kaiser, B.& Sklar Rasminsky, J. (2012). Challenging behavior in young children. (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc.
Strain, P. S., & Hemmeter, M. L. (1997). Keys to being successful when confronted with challenging behaviors. Young Exceptional Children, 1(1), 2-8.